Caution: Random Post Ahead

You know those chats you have with a good friend where you start on one topic and every time something triggers a thought you jump topics and by the end of the conversation you can’t even remember how you got from one topic to another? Yeah, that’s how my brain is today. Just too many interesting topics all swirling around in there!

The Madonna-Adoption thing. I have very mixed feelings about Madonna adopting this one year old boy from Malawi. First, honestly, I have mixed feelings about Madonna as a parent, period. Apparently she’s very strict and protective but I look at her public persona and I just wonder what kind of mixed messages her children are receiving. I’m also uncomfortable with her plan to fund a bunch of orphanages with the goal of indoctrinating thousands of African children to Kabbalah. But these are my own personal qualms and really, who am I to judge her? But then there’s a whole other level to this issue, in which Madonna flies into Africa on her private jet with a huge entourage, stays in the swankiest resort near the Presidential palace, plunks down millions of dollars in “humanitarian aide” and then is able to adopt a child on the spot, when normally families are required to live in Malawi for like 18 months before they can formally adopt a child. Now, if it’s common practice for the 18 month requirement to be waived, that’s one thing. But if it was waived just because Madonna is Madonna then I think that’s really wrong. But I’m not sure if I blame Madonna for that. I mean, let’s face it, if any of us had a bajillion dollars, wouldn’t it be easier to take our own private jet than worry about getting decent seats on an airline? And wouldn’t we choose to stay somewhere “comfortable”? And if the government offered to waive a huge waiting period, what parent would say, “oh no thankyou, that wouldn’t be fair to other adopting families”? So I definitely think her celebrity/wealth is giving Madonna an unfair advantage over the rest of us unknown peons, but I mostly place the blame on the governments that are allowing that to happen. Some good has out of all of this… there are some real conversations going on in the mainstream media about ethics and adoption. And they aren’t all the “baby-buying” slimy kinds of articles either. Many of them are very well thought out and researched. And more people are becoming aware of Africa’s AIDS orphan crisis (according to one article there are 900,000 orphans in Malawi, a nation of only 13 million people).

Speaking of the press, they sure were having a heyday over natural “disasters” this weekend, weren’t they? Granted, a 6.something earthquake in Hawaii is big news. But the reporters sounded downright disappointed that no one was killed and one anchor last night kept asking “What’s the worst that could happen now?” like she was just begging the “expert” to come up with some horrible doomsday prediction that would keep those ratings up. And then we heard that Buffalo NY was declared a national disaster area because it got snow… excuse me? Snow in Buffalo is a “disaster”? Seriously people, if Buffalo can’t handle snow, it shouldn’t be in Buffalo… that’s like people in Seattle going into a panic over rain. (Which okay, we’ve been known to do… but everyone laughs at us and says “what did you expect?”)

Okay, I think that’s all my “world events” topics for today… let’s get to the fun stuff: adoption talk!

Something finally clicked in B~’s brain and suddenly he’s mentally onboard. I’m thinking it was when I applied for our Visas, but I’m not sure. On Saturday he was all like “we need to make lists! we need to start packing!” and it made me so happy because if he’s getting excited about it, it must really be happening, right? (the flip side being if we don’t get TA this week, B~ will probably jump right back into the “it’s never going to happen” eeyore-funk he’s so good at and that would really stink, so let’s cross our fingers for TA ok?) So anyway my organizationally talented hubby got all our donations packed into those big XL ziploc bags – which if you squoosh all the air out of them as you’re zipping them work about as good as those “vacuum suction” bags – and into our biggest piece of luggage, a huge duffle bag I got from my step-grandma in college that we fondly refer to as “the body bag”. (Hmm, yeah, probably shouldn’t say that out loud at the airport.) And B~ organized the other things I’ve accumulated for Zeeb over the last 11 months and put them in a neat semi-packed pile.

Did you notice I said 11 months? Yep, yesterday was exactly ELEVEN MONTHS since we got Zeeb’s referral. In case you didn’t realize it, ELEVEN MONTHS is a dang long time to wait for your child. I would very much like it if we can travel and meet Zeeb before we hit the dreaded one year mark, please.

Speaking of “please”, I noticed this morning that I am having a “prayer issue” with God. See, over the last 11 months there have been a lot of times when I have begged God, “please help things move along.” “please let us get approved this week.” and sometimes just the generic anguished “please”. And while I am happy that we seem to be near the end of this interminable wait, I am not so sure that my “please” prayers have accomplished much. So this morning, I started to pray “please let us get TA this week” and I literally stopped myself and thought, I shouldn’t pray that because then it won’t happen. And how ridiculously superstitious is that? As if my thoughts/prayers are really going to affect the outcome that much? I don’t know, I guess it shows that my faith is shaky in this area… because one thing I’ve learned in the last 11 months is that God doesn’t take orders and often doesn’t even take requests. He hears, he answers, but it’s often not in the way I hope or expect. And frankly right now that kind of scares me.

Oh but let’s not end on a downer note today. This week is full of potential. It could be a week of good news, you never know. And I’m expecting fun packages in the mail (Zeeb’s carseat!) and I can obsessively track our visa’s online… I just checked and USPS tried to deliver our applications on Saturday but doh! the consulate’s not open on Saturday! So I shall assume they will be delivered today and then I can start obsessively tracking the return package! What fun! And I can drive myself crazy imagining the moment when our agency finally calls with the good news… will I be surprised after all this waiting? Maybe not the Grover definition of “surprised”…

See that, from Madonna to Grover in one post! Can’t say I didn’t warn you!